Chapter Thirteen
The kitchen was plunged into darkness.
Ella drew her hand away from the switch as if it were a snake. The chills she’d experienced while sipping the cold wine intensified until she was literally shivering with fear and adrenalin.
Her first thought was no thought at all.
It was pure gut-grabbing panic.
Where’s the flashlight?
She couldn’t remember unpacking it.
Once her eyes adjusted, there was just enough
moonlight to see across the kitchen. She found the doorway and made a beeline for Nick’s room to check on him. Though why he would have even wakened was beyond her—there hadn’t been a clap of thunder or bolt of lighting—nothing. But as always when anything happened, her first thought was of Nicky.
As she passed the attic door she automatically reached out and gave the knob another twist to make sure it was still locked.
In Nick’s room, all was quiet. He had turned onto his side, but was still sleeping peacefully. Her panic began to abate—her boy was okay, that was the main thing.
Ella peeked out his window. The wind was gusty, but not loud. The pine trees swayed back and forth as if to a silent melody.
That’s the problem, she told herself, the wind. A tree limb fell on a power line somewhere, that’s all. Funny, though. It didn’t seem that windy.
She made her way to her own bedroom to check the breakers. The breaker box was in her bedroom closet. But how will I be able to see them without a flashlight?
Back to the kitchen she went, in the dark, in search of matches and candles. Now that the fear had begun to abate, she was beginning to get mad. I’ll be a total wreck tomorrow to meet Nicky’s teacher, not to mention working at The Drugstore.
Then it dawned on her. She had a flashlight app on her cell phone. She’d just gotten so used to not using the phone that it was getting to the point where she sometimes forgot she even owned one.
She grabbed her purse off the table and dug it out. The flashlight app was nice and bright. Still need to buy a real flashlight, she told herself. Especially with winter coming. I should make a list of things I need in case of emergency. It occurred to her she’d never been on her own in a crisis situation. She’d always had her mom or Anson. At least he had been good in situations like these. But that doesn’t matter now—seeing Nick smiling and happy the way he was at the Pizza Hut—that’s what matters. I wouldn’t go back to the way it was for anything.
Holding the phone-light toward the floor so she wouldn’t trip over anything, Ella made her way to her bedroom.
She stood in front of the closed closet door.
It would be as black as death inside.
She would have to push aside all the clothes she’d just
unpacked and hung up yesterday. What if someone is hiding in there? What if someone has been in the house all along and they’ve just been toying with me? Idiot—get real. You’ve read too many scary books. Seen too many horror movies. This is real life and it’s just a power outage, nothing more.
Irrational or not, Ella did not want to open that door. She would rather have poured cold water on a bad tooth. But there was no other way—she had to know if a breaker had been tripped.
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